Social Enterprise Update 28/4/09
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
Produced daily by the Social Enterprise Coalition
Triodos or Unity
should run social investment bank, says academic
New financial model
‘will allow charities to compete with construction companies’
Continue reading for lots more…
National
Social enterprise
going ‘over the heads’ of NHS mavericks
Gemma Hampson,
Social Enterprise Magazine
The ‘right to
request’ social enterprise initiative is failing to attract the
interest of frontline health staff dedicated to driving change in the
NHS, according to a leading civil servant at the Department of Health
(DH). Right to request was introduced as part of Lord Darzi’s Next
Stage Review Final Report last year giving all NHS staff the right to
ask their primary care trust board if they can set up a social
enterprise to provide NHS-contracted services.
http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/news/detail/index.asp?id=947
Triodos or Unity
should run social investment bank, says academic
Henry Palmer,
Social Enterprise Magazine
An existing bank with
experience working with social enterprises should run the proposed
social investment wholesale bank, according to a leading third sector
academic. Professor Paul Palmer, professor in voluntary sector
management at City University’s Cass Business School, said any new
financial institution would risk creating yet another level of civil
service-style bureaucracy. Palmer was speaking following the Budget
announcement that the Office of the Third Sector (OTS) would launch a
consultation about the much mooted plans to create an investment bank
using unclaimed assets in dormant bank and building society accounts.
http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/news/detail/index.asp?id=946
Expert Eye: Law
Catherine Rustomji,
Social Enterprise Magazine
Collaborations and
mergers could help social enterprises win new business and battle the
recession – but take care. Catherine Rustomji, of Hempsons
Solicitors, offers expert advice. The intense press reporting of all
things recession-related has not left social enterprises untouched.
Recent reports from the Charity Commission refer to more than half of
charities feeling the effects of the downturn with 64 per cent of
largest charities concerned that future work will be affected. An
increase in the number of third sector organisations choosing to
merge has long been predicted as an immediate response in a
recession.
http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/features/detail/index.asp?id=945
Ethical Property
Company promises part-time office space for charities
David Ainsworth,
Third Sector Online
Hive Network planned
for London, Manchester, Brighton, Oxford and Bath. A third sector
landlord is planning to help start-up social enterprises and small
charities to escape from working in cramped coffee shops and draughty
village halls. The Ethical Property Company is launching a scheme to
offer the sector affordable part-time use of meeting rooms,
conference facilities and shared spaces. The Hive Network, to be
launched in June, will initially have buildings in Oxford and Bath.
More are planned for London, Manchester and Brighton.
New financial model
‘will allow charities to compete with construction companies’
David Ainsworth,
Third Sector Online
A Scottish housing
association is pioneering a new financial model it believes will help
charities to compete with construction companies for public building
contracts.
….Hugh Rolo, head of assets and investment at the
Development Trusts Association, said ideas such as this could help
retain more investment in local communities.”The problem the
third sector has at the moment is one of scale,” he said. “We
can’t bid for the biggest contracts. But that will come in time.”
Rolo said his organisation was keen for more charities and social
enterprises to get involved in such contracts.
Work scheme targets
young jobless
BBC News Online
Scotland
A new scheme aimed at
creating work for thousands of young Scots has been announced by the
UK Government. Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy said the £95m project
would aim to provide six months paid work for 15,000 young, long-term
unemployed. It is part of a UK-wide initiative called the Future Jobs
Fund announced in last week’s budget. The package will be open to
organisations which prove they can create long-term jobs or training.
They apply through the department of Work and Pensions
outlining how many and what kind of jobs they hope to create. It is
expected councils and social enterprises will be among the first to
bid for the money.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8021226.stm
Help for small
businesses
BiP Solutions
Public bodies should
take six simple steps to give small business better access to public
contracts, John Swinney said today. Steps include requiring suppliers
to pay sub-contractors within 30 days and using the free web portal
to advertise contracts – Public Contracts Scotland. Finance Secretary
John Swinney has written to Chief Executives and Heads of Procurement
throughout the public sector to promote access to public sector
contracts for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), social
enterprises and third sector bodies.
Darzi invites GP
‘innovators’ to bid for new cash
Gareth Iacobucci,
Pulse
GPs have been invited
to bid for a £220m war-chest of new Government money to encourage
innovation and financial savings in the health service. The cash
injection, first promised to SHAs in Lord Darzi’s next stage
review, has been ring-fenced for projects that deliver ‘a health,
social or financial benefit’.
….Bids are being welcomed
from the likes of PCOs, GP practices, and social enterprises or
universities if they bid in partnership with an NHS organisation.
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=23&storycode=4122534&c=2
Recession proof
Jenny Clark and
Karl Wilding, Charity Finance
How will the recession
affect the voluntary sector?
….Much of the orthodoxy in recent
years around sustainability has been to increase earned income, a
message the sector has clearly taken on board. Social enterprise
activity is now the norm, with earned income becoming increasingly
important in the funding mix. Although changes in accounting
practices are partly responsible, we estimate earned income increased
from £10.2bn (43 per cent of income) in 2001/02 to £17bn (51.2 per
cent) in 2006/07.
http://www.charityfinance.co.uk/home/content.php?id=2762&pg=17&cat=78
RBS SE100: Health
and social care
Gemma Hampson,
Social Enterprise Magazine
You just have to
compare this month’s growth figures with the last issue of Social
Enterprise, which featured the fastest growing companies in retail
and fair trade. Only three of the top five retail social businesses
had grown, in stark contrast to this month’s top five which have all
grown by at least 30 per cent. Collectively, the top five have an
average growth of a massive 68 per cent. In fact, only two of the 20
social businesses that completed the growth section of this month’s
survey had reduced in size, and even then their reductions were less
than ten per cent.
http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/features/detail/index.asp?id=942
From the Horse’s
Mouth: PR
Lily Lapenna,
Social Enterprise Magazine
Social enterprises are
often forced to do PR on a shoe-string, especially when starting up
but MyBnk founder Lily Lapenna is proof that you can get results with
minimal resources and here she shares her tips. We have chosen to do
our PR in house – we think it’s cheaper and we think we know our
business best. That doesn’t mean we don’t accept help and we’ve used
consultants for advice. We’ve found this really helpful and some will
spend a bit of time with you initially for free. This can be enough
to get some good ideas.
http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/features/detail/index.asp?id=943
Liam’s Got Issues:
April
Liam Black, Social
Enterprise Magazine
Can we really make a
difference? As if, says Liam Black.
….I’m with late leftie
Antonio Gramsci: ‘I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an
optimist because of will’. Expect the worst, but work for the best.
We know deep in our hearts that we have grievously hurt our earth.
The hard truth is, it’s worse than when I started. So why keep going?
Partly the answer is ‘what’s the alternative?’. Staying in bed,
getting out only to top up the Jamesons? No. Being involved in social
enterprise is about choosing to live as if we can make a difference;
as if greed and indifference are human aberrations, not the default.
http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/tradingplace/detail/index.asp?id=940Local
Local
East Sussex mental
health service could go
Emily Walker, The
Argus
Mental health patients
could be stripped of a vital service that one patient says saved him
from suicide.
….A spokesman for
the PCT said: “In conjunction with East Sussex Adult Social Care we
are re-organising mental health day services across the county so
that they offer local people much improved care and support which
focuses on recovery, inclusion and a return to employment. “Under
the new set up we will no longer commission day services at New Road
Nurseries as we consider that it does not fit in with the new look
services we plan to offer. ”However, we feel that the nursery
could have a long term future as a social enterprise, with the
potential for commercial activities at the site to support and
develop the services it presently provides.
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/4323089.East_Sussex_mental_health_service_could_go/
Plan to build
crematorium in Buchan
Jamie Buchan,
Aberdeen Press and Journal
A crematorium could be
built in the Buchan area to help fund a new strategy group, it has
emerged.
….Peterhead Projects has been established to look at
ways of improving the local economy and making the area more
attractive to visitors and businesses. One of its first projects will
be a radical revamp of the town’s under-used Lido. Derek Jennings,
a director of the group, said: “For the first two years we receive
core funding from Aberdeenshire Council, but after that we need to
generate income through social enterprises. “We need to ensure that
the company is self-sufficient and be able to plough profits into the
community.”
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1185384?UserKey=
Blogs
Community cohesion
is alive and well – no thanks to the government
Dave Clements,
Guardian Joe Public Blog
Are we really living
in a broken society? When we wrote The Future of Community: Reports
of a death greatly exaggerated, we came to a very different
conclusion. As one promotional blurb put it, communities are “alive
and well despite the government’s best efforts”. We were
suspicious of the motives of those who tell us our communities are
broken and that everything is getting worse. As we tried to get
across in the book, this is more an expression of the political
class’s own sense of dislocation from society than an accurate
reflection of real world problems.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2009/apr/28/community-cohesion-race-ethnic-minorities
Why the public
sector needs to improve its contractor handling
Jane Dudman,
Guardian Joe Public Blog
Today’s scathing
report from the Commons public accounts committee (PAC) about the
failure of central government organisations to address the most basic
aspects of getting good value from the £12bn they spend on services,
highlights just what a tough job the Treasury has on its hands as it
attempts to drive through its agenda of greater efficiency and
savings. The report from Edward Leigh’s committee rehearses a
depressingly long and all-too-familiar list of failings. It says
relationships between central government and its external suppliers
remain “too cosy” despite years of competitive
tendering.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2009/apr/28/policy-public-finance
Of
general interest
Politics:
Flawed attempt to
force social change
Nicholas Timmins,
Financial Times
The equality bill
suggests it is possible to legislate to “narrow the gap between
rich and poor”, as Harriet Harman put it on Monday. But at a time
when the government is already set to miss other self-imposed targets
for improving social and economic conditions, lawyers were sceptical
that public bodies could be ordered to help change society. The
legislation forces public sector organisations to “consider
reducing socio-economic inequalities”. It comes as the government
is introducing a statutory requirement for future governments to
eliminate child poverty, yet Labour is likely to fall well short of
its own interim target of halving it by 2010.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/055cb88c-3382-11de-8f1b-00144feabdc0.html
Business:
Tesco is ‘losing UK
market share’
BBC News Online
UK supermarket giant Tesco has lost market share to
discounters Aldi and Lidl as consumers cut back on spending. Tesco’s
share of the UK market dropped to 30.4% in March, from 30.8% a year
before, according to research firm TNS. Tesco’s share has dropped on
an annual basis in every month this year. Of the other “big
four” Sainsbury’s was flat while Asda and Morrisons gained
share. Wal-Mart-owned Asda moved to its record share of the UK
market, up to 17.5% from 17.1%. Meanwhile, Waitrose saw its
market share fall.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/8023250.stm
Environment:
Unlikely allies at
last: Prince and Pope
Peter Popham, The
Independent
Throughout the last
500 years the Vatican and the Royal Family have had their share of
disagreements. Not least about wives. But yesterday they were as one.
Both about wives, and perhaps more importantly, about the future of
the planet. Protocol would normally dictate that Prince Charles, on
his third visit to the Vatican, would initially meet Pope Benedict
without the Duchess of Cornwall. But protocol was waived to enable
them to meet the Pope together, instead of the Duchess coming in at
the end.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/unlikely-allies-at-last-prince-and-pope-1675177.html
